Report: Rural dentists in Colorado aging

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The Colorado Health Institute has released an assessment of Colorado’s rural dental health workforce. Done under contract with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), the assessment is based on findings from CHI’s 2006 survey of licensed Colorado dentists and focuses on a number of issues related to the supply of and demand for dentists in rural areas of the state.

Highlights of the findings include:

â ¢ The rural dental workforce in Colorado is agingâ 47% of dental responders practicing in a rural area were 55 years and older compared to 37% of the dental workforce practicing in an urban area;

â ¢ About 92% of dentists practicing in a rural area were male compared to 82% of dentists practicing in an urban area;

â ¢ A majority of dentists (both urban and rural) reported not accepting Medicaid patientsâ 68% rural and 74% urban. Of those who have Medicaid patients in their practice, a large percentage reported not accepting new Medicaid patients (73% rural and 71% of urban practicing dentists);

â ¢ Dentists practicing in rural areas appear to be much more likely to see Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) children than their urban counterpartsâ 52% rural versus less than 30% of dentists practicing in an urban area. Similarly, 48% of dentists in rural areas reported accepting new CHP+ patients compared to only 28% of dentists in an urban practice;

â ¢ The majority of dentists responding to the survey own their dental practiceâ 80% of dentists practicing in both rural and urban areas; finally,

â ¢ There were no significant income differences between dentists practicing either in rural and urban areas.

The paper summarizes these and other findings and presents policy options for increasing the number of dental providers choosing a practice in a rural area of Colorado.

The report may be downloaded at: http://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/Documents/workforce/rural_dentist_workforce.pdf